Here's a thing you should know about me. I'm a very, very dedicated fan of the meats of the world. From dry-aged prime steak all the way on down to bargain-freezer bacon, I love 'em.

I am, however, dating a vegetarian, which means frequent cooking of meatless dishes. Which could also mean a lot of uninspired meals, but, fortunately, it can also mean cross-applying some awesomeness from the meat world to that of vegetarian cooking.

Here's one example, that's quick and easy because it's Friday, and Friday is made for quick and easy. Steak au poivre has always been one of my go-to dishes -- it's fast, it gives a boost to cheap cuts of meat, and it's freaking coated in pepper and slathered with (traditionally) a brandy cream sauce. Personally, I use bourbon instead of brandy, for no other reason than I like it better. (And, also, unless you're using brandy that's way too expensive to be dumping in a pan and lighting on fire, the deeper, richer sugars in the bourbon make for a better counterpoint to the pepper. Take that, Frenchies!)

Anyway, this recipe is so easy I feel like it's cheating: you can do this with good steak, but, when i'm faced with a nice tenderloin, i can't bear to add this much to it. so grab yourself a mediocre steak -- round's all good, chuck works, even a cheap sirloin, and give it a quick dust with salt. Let it sit for a minute while you dump some peppercorns onto a board and smash the hell out of them with a frying pan (we call this "cracking" in the business), then roll your steak in 'em to coat. Fire up your cast-iron skillet (or standard pan -- stay away from the non-stick here) between medium and medium high, drop in a dollop of butter and let it melt. Slap your steaks in, cook 'em 4-6 minutes per side (four'll get you medium rare, six a solid medium), and then take them far away and cover.

Drain off the extra fat -- and I don't say that lightly -- and then the fun begins. You'll pour half a cup or so of bourbon in to de-glaze, and then, for safety's sake, stand back, get a long match or an aim-'n-flame, and light that bad boy up. Shake the pan 'til the flames die down, turn the heat to medium low, add a cup of half-and-half or heavy cream, and cook it down until it coats a spoon. You're gonna need to add salt here, so do that to taste, drop another shot of bourbon in there to amp up the flavor, dump it over the steaks and you've got a meal.

So where does the vegetarian part come in? Easy. The bourbon-cream sauce, in addition to kicking A-1's ass all over the map, is the best thing you've ever had on fried polenta. Seriously. Do the exact same thing, but replace the steaks with five or six discs of ready-made polenta (or, y'know, make your own, but that's way more trouble than it's worth), top the finished product with some crumbled parmigiano reggiano and throw something green and a chunk of ciabatta on the side. That, friends, is a vegetarian meal even a meat lover can love.